BPL2 - Chapter 1

About three months before Ruwen Starfield’s Ascension Day

Basement of The Wobbly Step Alehouse, Stone Harbor

The external locks on the basement door scraped open, followed by the door itself, spilling warm shaker light into the dark room.

Lylan’s older brother nodded his thanks to the barkeep, passed him a handful of coins, and dismissed him. He looked back at Lylan and smiled, crossing his arms. “Hey, kiddo.”

“Don do dat,” she grumbled. Dalyn was giving her his ironic smile—the smirk he used on authorities and girls at parties. His good looks and natural charm made this smile an effective weapon, but it wasn’t needed here. She didn’t want to be handled.

Dalyn sighed and stepped into the room. “Would you rather I scolded you for the trouble you bring into my life?”

Lylan rolled her eyes and spat another mouthful of blood onto the floor. “Do you haff dem?” she mumbled.

“Your teeth?” asked Dalyn. “Yes, darling, I have your teeth. But before I put them back in, how about you tell me why you don’t have your teeth.”

“Dat bassded lubber was sheedig agged!”

Dalyn blinked. “I can’t understand a word you’re saying.”

Lylan growled.

He kept himself from laughing, but barely. “Perhaps you’re right. Teeth first.” Dalyn pulled a bloodstained handkerchief from his pocket and unfolded it, revealing her incisors. “Open up.”

Lylan sat up and tilted her head back.

Dalyn removed a little vial of healing potion from his bag, dribbled a few drops onto the teeth, then put them into position in Lylan’s mouth and held them there for a moment. This wasn’t the first time he’d had to patch up Lylan after a bar fight.

“All done.”

Lylan nodded and ran her tongue over her restored teeth. She probably ought to have thanked him, but instead, she said, “That blasted lubber was cheating again! You think I was going to let him get away with that?”

“If he cheated last time,” said Dalyn, “The better question might be why you chose to play darts with him again.”

Lylan turned and started gathering her things from the bench. Of course he’d turn this into a lecture.

“Ignoring me won’t change the facts, sweetheart.” Dalyn moved to block the door before she could march out. “You knew he would cheat again and wanted the chance to teach him a lesson.”

“Are you a mind reader now?”

“I suggest,” he said, ignoring her comment, “that you get a few more levels under your belt before you decide to play the vigilante again. You’ve barely graduated from the Academy.”

“You sound like Ky,” she said, trying to push past him. Her boss was a real lecturer, too.

“Ouch.” Dalyn clutched his chest. “No need to be nasty. I just paid out three silvers to keep the barman from sending for the Enforcers.”

Lylan bit her lip and stopped trying to escape. “Thanks. I really am grateful you came for me, but…”

“But you don’t want to hear it.”

She shook her head.

He held up his hands. “Fine. Besides, I don’t want to spend your last night here arguing.”

Ugh. Lylan twitched away the thought and pushed past Dalyn, successfully this time. “Let’s just go.”

Truth be told, teaching that low-rent sewage sack Parchie a lesson was only half of what drove her to the bar tonight. Trying to forget her imminent exile to the Black Pyramid was the other half. It would be one thing if she was going there to adventure, but Ky was sending her there to work as punishment for a couple of minor mishaps. She was so mad she could spit.

Dalyn followed her up the inn’s back stairway and out into the foggy Stone Harbor night.

She glanced sideways at him as they walked down the wet and empty streets lit by flickering shakers and the eerie light of a cloud-shrouded moon. “Did you ask? What did she say?”

Dalyn kept pace with her quick step, but with no apparent effort. Hands in his pockets, eyes on the moon, he shook his head slightly. “Ky still wants you to go.”

“It’s a waste,” she said heatedly, her voice echoing off the nearby buildings. “I’m already level ten. I graduated a year early from the Academy. My skills are advanced enough to—”

Dalyn held up a hand, nodding patiently. “I argued your case just as you told me to,” he said. “But she has her reasons and has made her decision.”

“Are you kidding me,” she yelled. “That is such bilge. If she thinks—”

“Hey.” Dalyn grabbed her by the arm and spun her to face him. “Enough. It isn’t bilge and you know it. Ky knows how to run her operation and how to handle her operatives.” His usual breezy expression was gone. He held her gaze captive with his own. “If you want to be a Shade—a real Shade—then you need to learn to follow orders, especially the ones you don’t like. And unruly girls who go rogue and cause mayhem everywhere they go shouldn’t be surprised when they get demoted.”

Lylan wrenched her arm out of his grip. “You’re one to talk, Mr. Side Project,” she hissed. “When’s the last time you did what Ky told you to?”

“I always do what Ky tells me to,” he bit back. “And I do it well. Which is why Ky lets me do what I want the rest of the time. Shade’s first rule: loyalty earns leeway.”

Lylan ground her teeth. He was right, but she didn’t want to admit it. Dalyn’s cheerful acquiescence and skill at completing his official duties made him the darling of Ky’s organization. Lylan was honest enough to admit to herself that she didn’t have what it took to do what he did. But causing mayhem? Nah. She liked to think of herself as innovative. “Fine,” she said sullenly. “What’s your current side project, anyway?”

He turned and gave her a small wink. “Once you grow up, I’ll tell you.”

“Har har,” said Lylan. “Why can’t I know? Is this a punishment, too? Don’t tell me you’re going to cut me out if I don’t go tomorrow.”

“Don’t be stupid,” he said with a sigh. His mouth hitched up into a half smile. “But I might have to lock you back up till I’m finished. Can’t have the whole thing going sideways if you decide that Parchie needs another whipping. Oh, wait…” He snapped his fingers. “It was you who got whipped.”

Lylan punched his arm. “Shut up.” She crossed her arms and shivered in the fog as they turned left and walked down a sloping ally.

In daylight, she’d be able to see the docks from this vantage, and just above them the tumbledown slums where she and Dalyn had grown up. Sure, the goddess provided the necessities of life to all her subjects, but that didn’t help much when you’re lovable but moronic uncle drank and gambled half of it away on the regular.

While Uru lolled in her cloud palace, or wherever she spent her time, two black-haired children had gone hungry more evenings than she could count. Two children had left for school every day shamefaced because they couldn’t afford pencils or shoes without holes. They couldn’t even afford time to do their homework, not when there might be mussels to be scrounged from the sides of the jetty.

Shaking her head of the memories, Lylan looked back up at her handsome brother. A black curl had fallen onto his forehead and she brushed it back. Dalyn was six years older than herself, and it was he who’d kept her alive after Uncle Ress died, who’d paid for her to attend the Observer school after her Ascension. The gods could rot—and for that matter, so could everyone else— it was Dalyn who had never let her down. He’d made his opinion clear about what she should do. “Okay,” she whispered. “I’ll go to the Black Pyramid.”

Dalyn’s eyebrows rose. “Well, of course you’ll go. You never had any choice in the matter. I just want you to whine about it less, that’s all.”

Lylan threw her hands up and marched away, Dalyn chuckling and following behind.

“Don’t look so glum,” said Ky, leaning against the door of Lylan’s bedroom.

Lylan jerked her head up, then pasted a huge smile on her face. “Oh, no. I’m thrilled at this chance to brush up on my mopping skills.”

“Moping skills more like.”

Lylan rolled her eyes. “When do we leave?”

Ky gave her a wink, then stepped into the room and shut the door. “In a moment,” she said. “Right after I read you in on your secondary mission.”

Lylan stood up, blinking. “Are you serious?”

Ky cast a privacy spell, blocking out the sounds from the city and the sea. “Gather your things. Something is going on in my dungeon, and I need help getting to the bottom of it.”

“How bad?”

Ky had already pulled out her portal chalk and started to draw runes on Lylan’s wall. “Fourteen dead in the last three weeks.”

Lylan frowned. “Isn’t death expected in a Tier Zero dungeon?”

“The dungeon didn’t kill them,” said Ky. “And it wasn’t just adventures in the levels. Two of my staff were killed, too.”

Lylan waited for more, but Ky didn’t continue. “I don’t understand. Do these people have something in common?”

“Not that we can see.”

Lylan bit her lip as she thought. “The most likely motive is an assassin sent to destabilize you, but then why target adventurers? You think it was a hit and they’re trying to cover their real target?”

“Or a distraction from something bigger. Maybe these victims were chosen randomly.” Ky looked grim. “I don’t know anything, except that this person is evil. I won’t describe the state of the bodies we’ve found.”

Lylan just stared.

Runes finished, Ky stowed away her chalk and leaned against the wall again. She pointed to the portal. “I’ve never brought anyone under level twenty through the Blood Gate before, but I’m desperate for all the hands I can get. I’m recalling every Shade I’ve got except the ones on active assignment. Someone is hunting inside the Black Pyramid, and they’re doing it in a way none of us can explain. We can find no signs, no witnesses, no trace. Everyone is accounted for. No magic—even mine—can track whoever this is.”

“And the Dungeon Keeper?”

Ky rolled her eyes. “Not saying.”

Lylan didn’t know what to make of that reaction, but regardless… A secondary mission! She jumped off the bed and began throwing all her essential gear into her bag.

Ky raised an eyebrow as she watched Lylan. “You seem happier than is appropriate.”

“I’m not happy,” clarified Lylan. “People died. It’s just that this is a real mission and you’re not sending me there to move boxes. I’m eager to get started and help stop him.”

Ky smiled wryly. “I never said you wouldn’t still be moving boxes.”

Lylan dropped an armful of clothes. “Tell me you’re joking.”

“Your enthusiasm is admirable,” said Ky. “But I don’t send baby Shades to the front lines, especially ones I can’t trust. Everyone else will be on patrol, but you’re going someplace where you can’t cause havoc. Honestly, if I didn’t absolutely require another set of eyes down there, I’d have just cut you loose entirely.”

“Cut me loose?” repeated Lylan, shocked. “You were going to fire me?”

“I already have. I no longer consider you one of my Shades, but I still need you.” Ky crossed her arms. “Can I be blunt?”

“You weren’t already?”

“I find you impossible to teach,” said Ky, shrugging. “You disregard orders in the field. That performance in Kinallen was an embarrassment. Your personal life is messy and unserious. Even when you listen to advice, you weigh it against what you already believe and discard anything that doesn’t fit. You trust no one, and that’s no way to improve. While I admire your spirit and don’t want to stamp it out, the current situation is untenable.” She sighed. “I just don’t know what to do with you. You haven’t been trying, so why should I?”

“None of that is true,” said Lylan, stepping back like she’d been slapped. “I always—”

“You’re disregarding my words right now,” interrupted Ky. “And I have no desire to argue about this with you. I’ve said my piece, and I think you’d be wise to think it over. Circumstances have given you one last chance. I recommend you take it. Put your head down, do your work, and when this is all over, we can talk about whether you still have a place with us.”

Lylan swallowed hard. She’d known she wasn’t exactly a model employee, but she hadn’t known she was this close to getting chucked. This didn’t seem fair.

But no matter. She’d simply step it up a few notches. Put on her serious face. Become a stickler for the rules, at least for a few months. Easy. Lylan was born to be a Shade and she’d prove it to Ky even if it bored her to death.

She nodded once. “Understood.”

“Okay.” Ky gestured to the rune door. “Let’s get you to the Farm.”

Lylan walked up to the door and stepped through.

The world went white, and Lylan’s head exploded in pain.